


Op.72 No.1

by SkyHighDisco



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Friendship, Music, Piano, pianist James, sentimental Jeremy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26947774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/pseuds/SkyHighDisco
Summary: James doesn’t like public performances. Which is why when he spots a piano, he makes sure everything within earshot is empty. One night, though, he isn’t particularly thorough…
Relationships: Jeremy Clarkson & James May
Kudos: 5





	Op.72 No.1

**Author's Note:**

> [Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Op. 43, variation 18](https://streamable.com/yysoh4)
> 
> Rachmaninoff managed to create something so irreplaceable and enchanting in this piece that it somehow sprouted _this_. I adore this music. It’s otherworldly. Worth a listen, I promise you. <3
> 
> Fun fact, the name of the story actually comes from Chopin’s E-minor nocturne that is mentioned in the story. It’s because both pieces are equally responsible for inspiration, but Rachmaninoff prevailed in the end, and I'm glad he did.

* * *

Jeremy hates insomnia.

He has no problem falling asleep. As far as he’s heard, that’s a bigger problem, but waking up and not being able to go back under is, you will find, equally problematic. Honey and tea help. Almonds, too. And turkey for some reason, but they didn’t have that on the menu today.

Realizing it is going to be one of those nights where he won’t be getting any sleep anymore and since they’re up for an early start, Jeremy figures going through the night doing something useful is better than tossing and turning and waiting for a miracle.

He closes his eyes, inhales deeply and counts to three in his head. Then pushes up from the bed, gritting his teeth only slightly at the familiar pang down his back. He walks it off in a few steps, though. Not entirely, it’s still there, but less definable.

The hotel is quiet when he slips out the door and starts down the hallway, slippers making a soft noise against the carpet of the hotel floor. He stops by Richard’s room several doors down the hallway and leans in, smiling when he detects the faintest sounds of snoring.

It’s one of those hotels that merely served as a pit stop between points A and B. Cheap and decent, but they’ve been better. And worse. It also means that in this dead time of night, it’s so quiet a hitman couldn’t sneak around unnoticed.

Jeremy treads down the stairs to the lobby, not having any particular destination in mind. He left the fags in the room and to hell with him if he was going back up the stairs to get them again.

At least he has his phone. And there’s a nice saloon with lovely lounging chairs.

He is checking his phone while walking, navigating himself by heart, smiling at one of the cheeky messages from Em.

Obviously the lack of sleep is clouding rational thinking. When he reaches the destination and attempts to open the door, he surprises himself by his bafflement at the fact the saloon is locked.

Of course. Otherwise there would be no drinks in the morning because it would all get stolen overnight when no one is looking. He couldn’t blame the fact since he would be largely tempted as well.

Jeremy is just about to wonder what now because pool table and all the fun toys are in there when he is startled by soft noise down the hallway.

Because he is bold and opportunistic he doesn’t think twice before going to see what it is. Boredom asks for no caution. However, he does try to be silent. And when he peeks around the corner to the next room, he is infinitely glad he does.

It’s another insomniac — James.

He’s climbing the creaky wooden steps onto an old stage. Filling the rest of the semi-large room are neat rows of cushioned chairs.

Jeremy hides behind a tied-up curtain to one side of the entrance and before he can debate why he hasn’t loudly announced his magnificent presence sabotaging James’ obviously purposeful alone-time, he is once again glad for his furtiveness.

In the middle of the stage is a square black chair, and looming over it a huge concert piano with a semi-open lid. James slowly approaches it, stopping two meters away like it’s a dangerous jungle beast.

Jeremy sees the irony in the other man’s appearance. Long-sleeved pj and disheveled hair isn’t exactly a dressing etiquette common for May’s intended actions.

Jeremy doesn’t care.

_Play, James. Please, play._

James looks around and goes still to listen and Jeremy makes himself stop breathing, even though his lungs are already fucked up.

_There is no one in here I promise you this room is sound-isolated for a reason do you honestly expect someone to mock you for wanting to blow off steam and enjoy yourself for the love of everything that’s holy sit down on that chair and PLAY!_

James looks at the dormant black beast waiting to be awoken. Doesn’t say a word, doesn’t move and Jeremy wonders if he’s watching a tape that has glitched. Then James minutely shakes his head and steps back, scoffing. As if for whatever reason he thinks what he is doing is a stupid idea.

_Nononononononono_

James begins walking back the way he came, but Jeremy can see hesitance in his step, how unwillingly he is leaving behind his desire, itching, wanting fingers and emptiness in his soul up there on this silent stage just because for whatever reason he believes this is a bad idea.

_You blithering idiot, get back there!!_

Jeremy’s thought is so loud that Jeremy sighs it through his nose and immediately clamps his hand over it when he realizes the normally undetectable sound echoes perfectly fine in this acoustic environment.

It takes him a few moments to dare to look at James from his place in the shadows. James _was_ turned back around, but he wasn’t looking in Jeremy’s direction at all. His eye is set on another prize.

Jeremy captures the change in his eyes and immediately pulls out his phone, making sure it’s mute.

James is careful from the very start; from making his way over slowly and silently, sitting down and letting the chair creak its own introduction, pulling it forward quietly, opening the lid and tenderly removing a lengthy satin piece of cloth to revel in a set of 88 shiny black and white teeth.

Jeremy only looks down to see if the phone’s recording.

James sits there at first, eyeing the keys. He sits there for so long that Jeremy wonders if he’s fallen asleep, but there are no snores so that’s a start.

 _What now?_ is what he asks himself. James has the tools to work with, the masterpieces to reproduce, himself to unleash. No. He sits there and debates like the piano is a museum exhibit that mustn’t be touched else it’ll explode like thin glass.

 _Damn you, Slow_ , Jeremy curses inwardly, trying not to shift from foot to foot when he feels a familiar nip in the lower regions. _Of all the times you decide to go half a mile an hour and I can’t tell you a thing._

James eventually does bring his hands up and tests out the instrument with a few random impressionism, Debussy/Saint-Saëns-like chords, then hammers a few bars of Scriabin’s preludes, softly caresses Grieg’s second movement of A-minor concerto — Jeremy recognizes that one. He had the pleasure of hearing all of it thanks to Richard’s soft ‘’play me something’’ during his recovery time from his first heart-stopping crash — and types out Chopin’s E-minor nocturne.

But they are all snippets, carelessly walked over, and they end before Jeremy’s tense muscles can properly relax.

A warm-up then.

It ends gradually with flickered notes here and there, ragtime snippets, all in a quiet, cautious, wary, shy succession.

James lifts his head and listens to the silence again in all his pajama-clad glory to ensure his cover hasn’t been blown and Jeremy makes himself hold his breath again.

It takes a while and just as Jeremy is about to explode into a barrage of noise, James looks back down at the keys.

White and black teeth.

Contemplates what measures to undergo with them.

Jeremy’s bladder is getting impatient.

Skilful academic hands land back on the keys. And in the next moment, out comes music so soft and sweet that Jeremy’s knees buckle, a reaction forever to be embedded in the shakiness of the camera.

As Jeremy attempts to compose himself watching the spectacle unfolding before him, he reaches one wealthy conclusion.

James that sits at the grand piano all alone isn't the same James that sits at a synthesizer in front of billions of people. What he is doing now… Jeremy cannot describe it differently, but James’ appearance changes. His back straightens, his shoulders open, he is swaying back and forth with the spindling melody like his back never ached at all and he looks three decades younger, a swan navigating its way through the serene lake.

His eyes are closed most of the time, except when he is attempting to nail a very tricky chord, and when they are it seems to Jeremy there are other harmonies there, too, ones that only James can hear, and his fingers are transmitters that leak them into the keys and have something to do with that humming, beautifully content smile on James’ face.

It’s a conversation between two lovers. James inhales and the piano exhales, he presses his fingers in, and the hammers give him everything he asks for. Jeremy’s eyes swallow all of it; the way he sometimes lingers at chords and makes them appear eternal and divine until he moves on and you realise only two or three seconds have passed, the way he sometimes bounces off the chair when he hits a particularly dense cluster of notes, all ten fingers accounted for and the way James is simply locked into a waltz with ecstasy.

Jeremy adores it. He adores it too much to expose his presence.

Since stealth has never been his forte, Jeremy had to make means to participate in this intimate ritual without directly implying his presence, which can be a bummer sometimes since Jeremy is not exactly agile anymore, but luckily James is too transfixed to notice anything. He’s not even in this room. He is off this Earth.

As chords get more intense and increase in dynamic, James’ person opens up even more and there are expressions crossing over his face that Jeremy had never seen before, never knew a James May he was familiar with could conjure them up.

When the melody’s culmination is at its peak and goosebumps sprout all over Jeremy’s body when the chords become slamming, desperate, pushing the instrument to the limits, he prays to God hotel management doesn’t come running to see who is messing with the piano without permission and kill the magic because at this point, James doesn’t care. As far as he is concerned, the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

Just as culminatingly as it has come, the music _decrescendo_ -s from hammering chords back to the enchanting melody from the beginning and keeps quieting down until James is hunched over the keys, having a mesmerizingly private conversation with the piano, hunching his head down in the end, defeated, when the _pianissimo_ finishes on a non-tonic tone, a sentence left hanging in the air with undefinable conclusion, where the end of the story will never be uncovered.

James becomes a hunched-over statue as the music is still ringing across the music hall, becoming quieter and quieter until it fades out into thin air, but even so, the pianist doesn’t move and Jeremy doesn’t breathe.

He suddenly becomes aware of a wet line on his right cheek.

Then James leans back with an exhale and Jeremy breathes out together with him.

Just like that, all the magic is gone.

And with it comes back the realization of just how much Jeremy has to pee.

He’s dangerously close to exploding, in fact.

The wave of need is so sudden and intense that Jeremy has to cross his legs and stagger, unconsciously stopping the recording in the meantime.

And with his clumsy, totally un-stealthy mass, he hits the door wing of the entrance with his rear.

The sound explodes around the hall.

James jumps on the chair, shooting a wary glare to where Jeremy stood.

_Fuck._

_Fuckfuckfuck._

Jeremy is already hidden in shadows so he didn’t think he was noticed, but he instinctively clamps a hand over his mouth.

When James shoots out of the chair to race back down the stage, Jeremy uses the moment to slip out of the hall and into the hallway, hiding behind the open wing.

James blitzes out of the door a moment later, but by some miracle doesn’t stop to look around. He dashes down the hallway towards the stairs at an impressive speed, rounds the banister and disappears up the stairs, jumping over two at a time all the while minding to make as little noise as possible.

The reserved, snappy, wary James was back.

Jeremy exhales loudly once. Then another time because his lungs are angry with him. And then the third time, rubbing a hand down his face and he feels there’s a smile there.

Despite himself, he was smiling. He checks the phone just in case. The recording’s here, alright.

Proof that James May has two faces.

These vulnerable kinds of videos Jeremy never shares with anyone. Not even Richard and James. These only belong to him. And from the safe corner, when he knows he’s alone, he can subtly pull his phone out and watch them and revel in what he has. Mythical things that actually exist. Such as Richard Hammond enchanted by a seemingly mundane aspect of life. James May brimming with emotion.

Sometimes, he admits... sometimes insomnia isn't that bad after all.

A pang shots through Jeremy’s lower regions again as the bladder presses against the prostate.

Right.

Time for a wee.


End file.
